A number of readers (on both sides of the political aisle) have e-mailed me or otherwise messaged me to ask my opinions on or whether I would post about the Chick-Fil-A Hullabaloo. To be sure, earlier this week, I had planned a post on the matter, but, as I started writing it, chose not to finish the post and leave the story alone. The fast food chicken restaurant is, after all, a private enterprise, one of which I have patronized only occasionally (like maybe two or three times) in my life.

But, thanks to Democraticurbanpoliticians eager to patronize the gay community (in response to activists suddenly upset that the chicken chain’s president had expressed support for traditional marriage), the story is not going away.

Last night on Facebook, my friend Rick Sincere (check out his blog here) offered a nice succinct statement on the story in which this smart libertarian summarized my basic response to the kerfuffle:

Property rights are human rights. Customers should be able to boycott a business; the government should not make that decision for them.

If you don’t like the fact that Chick-Fil-A’s president is a “devout” Christian who supports traditional marriage, then don’t buy his company’s product, but don’t attempt to impose your views on the rest of us by demanding that cities not grant permits to further franchises.

If cities determine to grant no business licenses to companies because of their management’s controversial politics, then we’d have to demand that cities grant no further licenses to Ben and Jerry’s franchises.

That said, the left-wing politics of that company won’t stop me from stopping by one of their stores on those occasions when I have a craving for a dish of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

FROM THE COMMENTS: MV asks some questions that this story should cause us to consider:

The fact that Chic-fila-a is a big business plays into this too because it gives the left the attention that they want. We give money to businesses all the time with out knowing their personal and political beliefs. Are the left going to start asking every business how they feel on every issue before they spend their money there?

Sometimes, I wonder if what is really driving this issue is the “need” of some folks to be upset about something — to feel victimized.

EVEN MORE FROM THE COMMENTS: Rick Sincere, whom I referenced in the post offers:

Consumer boycotts are a legitimate exercise of free speech and free association. Sometimes they are effective and sometimes they are not, but they are always morally and politically superior to government coercion.

Somebody should explore this phenomenon in depth. And it’s funny that Mayor Menino is posturing as some sort of defender of decency, but there’s nothing more indecent than a city in which your right to do business depends on whether the downtown hacks approve of your ideas.

Meanwhile, I wonder if his threats didn’t open him, and Boston, up to a federal civil rights suit. He’s threatening to use the apparatus of government against people for constitutionally protected speech and beliefs.

The more I think about this – and other similar events in recent news, such as the boycotting of Orson Scott Card (the author) because of his opposition to gay marriage – the more I think it basically amounts to being willing to starve (an artist, a company, a “wrong-thinking person”) into submission. Don’t like the way they think? Punish them by taking away their means of support until they learn to think right or at least parrot the right words like good little re-educated citizens. It’s bullying: do what we say or we’ll hurt you.

I was admonished within the last few days for daring to use the word ‘traditional’ regarding marriage. Why can’t we just have ‘marriage’ without referring to what KIND of marriage it is? Oh, I don’t know. Because categories matter. Human infants begin categorizing things almost as soon as they can grasp that red blocks are a different color from blue. Yet now it’s the new racism. Don’t you DARE differentiate between different types of things. If you do, it’s HATEFUL.

It’s not quite as bad when it’s merely other citizens expressing their opinions. When government gets into it, it begins to border on actual re-education, with the full weight and force of the state and/or federal governments behind it.

Them being closed on Sunday is a business decision, one I can disagree with but still respect because hey, it’s a business.

My ward (42nd) has a Chick-Fil-A, and it does crazy amounts of business and is always jammed packed. It does a good business, hired nearly 100 people and puts some tax revenue into the system. What’s wrong with that?

And it’s typical Chicago pandering. Moreno’s ward feels like San Francisco in terms of liberalism. Emanuel is siding with Moreno. Figures.

The fact that Chic-fila-a is a big business plays into this too because it gives the left the attention that they want. We give money to businesses all the time with out knowing their personal and political beliefs. Are the left going to start asking every business how they feel on every issue before they spend their money there?

The religious right has had a perennial boycott against the Disney theme parks because of “gay days” at Disney World. This has also been applied to other companies that sponsor events for gay customers, including various other theme parks (King’s Dominion near Richmond, Virginia, comes to mind).

The left, for its part, boycotted Coors Brewing for years after Coors had an equal-opportunity policy for gay employees (remember, Mary Cheney worked there). The basis of the gay left’s boycott of Coors was that some of the family who had owned the company used their inheritance to fund anti-gay causes, even though that personal action was at odds with the corporation’s own policy.

Consumer boycotts are a legitimate exercise of free speech and free association. Sometimes they are effective and sometimes they are not, but they are always morally and politically superior to government coercion.

Consumer products are one thing. Government is something else entirely.

When you have a Government official saying a Christian business owner’s beliefs should preclude him from feeling welcome, but a violent anti-semite who holds the same opinion is to be cheered…
Or another mayor saying he’ll lie and use traffic reasons to punish the owner for not being politically correct, that’s something else entirely.

I’ll end with a quote form Jonah Goldberg:

I am generally appalled by the way the mayors of Boston and Chicago have treated the company which would bring, again, tasty chicken and jobs to their cities. But just because the owner of the company has pretty much the same views on gay marriage Barack Obama had six months ago, Mayors Emanuel and Menino say the chain restaurant is unwelcome in their city. The chain doesn’t discriminate in hiring or in who it serves. The only crime here falls under the category of thought crime. In the past I’ve described this sort of thing as the liberal gleichschaltung, because it’s a form of soft totalitarianism. You’re free to participate in the American system, free to say whatever you believe, do whatever you want, just so long as you agree entirely with liberals on everything. There are no safe harbors, no “islands of separateness“ tolerated in this worldview (though, ironically, Emanuel and Menino are carving out little islands of separateness out of their respective soft-totalitarian cities. We can discuss that later perhaps).

Local state government blocking legitimate businesses from opening venues for religious/political affiliation is asinine at best and an abuse of power at worse. It no doubt, scores high on the political pandering meter.

That being said; if a private business is going to be vocal in its opposition to SSM, (or any topic for that matter), it is in its protected right to do so. And it’s the protected right of working citizens not to patronize that establishment if they choose. It is not unreasonable for certain members of the populous to not want to have their money linked to a company actively set against their ideals.

I do think it is interesting Dan, (and perhaps a little telling) that you seem to state that those participating in the CFA boycott are crying victim hood. (and I am speaking of the boycott, not the blocking of new establishments by local government) When plenty of people groups opposed to SSM are boycotting Starbucks, General Mills, Microsoft, Google, etc for their support of SSM.

“Sometimes, I wonder if what is really driving this issue is the “need” of some folks to be upset about something — to feel victimized.”

So is the “need” of [these] folks to feel victimized the same driving force you speak of?

Comment by Sandhorse — July 26, 2012 @ 4:04 pm – July 26, 2012

I’m sorry, Sandhorse, but didn’t you just blabber that a consumer boycott and a governmental banning were not the same thing?

So your attempt to link them together to smear Dan and brand him as a hypocrite is nothing more than reaching on your part.

Furthermore, your entire post consists of nothing more than equivocation and whining about how evil religious people are, rather than dealing with how your Barack Obama Party, your Human Rights Campaign, and your gay and lesbian community are openly demanding and using governmental power to block and punish businesses based on their political affiilation.

Your childish games grow tiresome. If you’re going to whine and scream about how evil boycotts are, then apply it to your own Obama Party and LGBT leadership. If you are going to try to use consumer boycotts to equivocate and rationalize for what is a flat-out abuse of government power, then you stand exposed as a complete and total hypocrite.

You just don’t have the balls or the moral principles to state that your Obama Party, your Human Rights Campaign, and your gay and lesbian community are outright bigots who are abusing the law. You HAVE to make excuses and equivocate and blame religious people for your own failings.

At a downtown Atlanta Chick-fil-A on Thursday, customers were divided over the company’s stance.
“If you’re a Christian, you believe in the Bible. The Bible says homosexuality is wrong. (Cathy’s) absolutely right,” Marci Troutman said over her breakfast.

Her business partner, Steve Timpson, said he chose not to eat at Chick-fil-A: “You’ve got to be more tolerant if you’re going to operate in the wider market in this country.”

Nearby, Dustin Keller offered another view of Cathy: “It’s his opinion. He’s entitled to it. I’m just here to eat.”

Government of the left rears its ugly head once again. I don’t know about you all, but I love Chic-fil-La chicken salads and their chicken bites (or whatever they call them). Their lemonade is excellent, too. I will continue to purchase from them, and I will show my support for them on August 1st. If possible, I will let the manager know why I visited his/her establishment on that particular day, I will do so.

The company is well-positioned to come through the criticism relatively unscathed, even if it loses new markets in the North and elsewhere, University of Georgia marketing professor Sundar Bharadwaj said. He said that is because Chick-fil-A basically reflects the politics of its customers.

There are a variety of voices to be heard in this collection of pro-equality testimonials, but Rev. Melvin Woodworth’s remarks may be the most notable.

In his minute-and-a-half video, the Methodist minister describes a time years ago when a gay man came to him and say he wanted to be married, the first time Woodworth had really thought hard on the matter.

“As he talked to me, I just discovered that he was like every other person who had come to me wanting to get married,” says Woodworth. “He had love in his heart, he wanted to share it with a person that he had found and he wanted to shout it from the mountain tops.”

Our tradition says that God didn’t think it was good for a person to be alone. God wants us to be in relationship with other people, and God wants us especially to be in relationships that have certain qualities, and those qualities include honesty, faithfulness, mutuality, equality, affirmation of life, joy in life. God wants us to be in relationships where we share back-and-forth with each other.

After a lot of study of scripture, a lot of work with couples, I have just come to the point where I understand that this is the right thing to do.

“As an American you are legally entitled to your opinion, regardless of how insensitive and intolerant it may be, but as a fellow American and an elected member of Philadelphia City Council; I am entitled to express my opinion as well. So please – take a hike and take your intolerance with you. There is no place for this type of hate in our great City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection.” – Philadelphia City Coucilman Jim Kenney, in a letter to Cathy and chik a fila

I am only going to respond to you one last time and never again. I am making this statement now for the record since you feel this insatiable need to make stuff up about people.

Dan and Bruce might allow you to screed such drivel but that doesn’t mean I have to put up with it. I suppose in some circles these types of comments you post are considered to add to the conversation. I wholeheartedly disagree.

So finally, though I know I am wasting my proverbial breath:

1) “…didn’t you just blabber that a consumer boycott and a governmental banning were not the same thing?”

Yup, that’s what I did.

2) “So your attempt to link them together to smear Dan and brand him as a hypocrite is nothing more than reaching on your part.”

I didn’t link them together, it’s not my fault you can’t read.

Dan referred to ‘folks’ in his comment, not government leaders or government organizations. If he was referring to the political pandering of the above said organizations he is free to clarify, he doesn’t need you. It was, after all, directed at him.

3) “…your entire post consists of nothing more than equivocation and whining about how evil religious people are…”

I have not now, not in the past, nor will I ever in the future refer to ‘religious people’ as evil. Why, for one reason, I don’t believe ‘religious people’ are evil. Secondly, calling them as much would be calling myself evil.

So no amount of huffing and puffing from you about me being anti-religious will make it true.

My parents were missionaries. And no, not your ‘weekend missionaries’, they did full time 24/7 outreaches. They didn’t just ‘talk’ their faith, they lived it. From the time I was four to my 17th year I was brought up participating in this mission work. My own mission work has taken me not only to local inner cities, but also overseas in former communist countries. I take the Great Commission very seriously.

You may feel comfortable spreading lies and rumors about people, but you have not one drop of evidence that I belong to or support such organizations. If you want to insist I do, then the burden is yours to prove it.

Until then, you are lying about me. If this is the way you chose to represent your faith, so be it. There is no need for you to imply I said religious people are ‘evil’ when your actions would demonstrate more then anything I could say.

That’s it. Feel free to continue to call me names and spread misinformation about me. But mark my words I will never again justify or otherwise lend credence to the lies you spread by directly responding to you.

Because you did a lot of screaming that all adds up to the obvious: you just don’t have the balls or the moral principles to state that your Obama Party, your Human Rights Campaign, and your gay and lesbian community are outright bigots who are abusing the law. You HAVE to make excuses and equivocate and blame religious people instead.

So yes, you ARE anti-religious. You are bigoted towards religious people and treat them unfairly, while blabbering and making excuses for gay bigots like Dan Savage.

And you repeated exactly the same pattern in this post. Blame and attack religious people to equivocate for your inability to hold your gay and lesbian community, your Barack Obama Party, and your Human Rights Campaign responsible for demanding the use of governmental power to punish people for expressing their religious and political views.

“As an American you are legally entitled to your opinion, regardless of how insensitive and intolerant it may be, but as a fellow American and an elected member of Philadelphia City Council; I am entitled to express my opinion as well. So please – take a hike and take your intolerance with you. There is no place for this type of hate in our great City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection.” – Philadelphia City Coucilman Jim Kenney, in a letter to Cathy and chik a fila

Comment by rusty — July 26, 2012 @ 5:16 pm – July 26, 2012

Yup.

And since you have made it clear that you intend to use your position to punish a business and an individual for expressing their religious and political views, you are in violation of the First Amendment.

No wonder you would quote that, rusty. Bigot gays like yourself are invariably so blind to their own hypocrisy that they do stupid things like that.

ND30, you only lob those false accusations against Sand Horse, because he said things you can’t challenge, but aren’t in agreement with your beliefs. Is that the point to many of your posts here? To show gay liberals what it feels like to have false accusations thrown at you for not towing the political line and agreeing with their beliefs?

Oh, and Sandhorse, here’s a thought: instead of equivocating and spinning, you probably could have simply stuck to saying that the gay and lesbian community, the Obama Party, the Human Rights Campaign, and these Obama politicians were being idiots.

Because now we see you whining and screaming about Oreos when your gay and lesbian community, your Obama Party, your Human Rights Campaign, and your Obama politicians are exposed as the most blatant and obvious of hypocrites.

Let’s reiterate that. YOU are sitting here desperately spinning and bashing people who are boycotting Oreos……to cover for the fact that your gay and lesbian community, your Obama Party, your Human Rights Campaign, and your Obama politicians want to use the power of the law to ban restaurants for expressing opposition to gay marriage while openly handing over tax dollars, space, and preferential treatment to Obama Party donors and voters who want to KILL gays.

In short, congratulations. You succeeded in being even more of a pathetic child than previously. You’ve now sold your entire bit of self-respect off because you were too scared to criticize your bigoted idiot friends like Dan Savage, and are on the books as saying it’s OK to KILL gays as long as you support Barack Obama and the Obama Party.

Absence of a response to that should not necessarily be viewed as inability to make a case, or as any other position pro/con on NDT; another explanation for not responding could be disinterest in being sucked into whatever game Cinesnatch is trying to stage.

“If cities determine to grant no business licenses to companies because of their management’s controversial politics…”
More correctly:
“If cities determine to grant no business licenses to companies because of their founder’s or their CEO’s controoversial politics…”

Excuse please, but let’s tighten this one up just a little bit more:
“If cities determine to grant no business licenses to companies because of their founder’s or their CEO’s political and social views, which some find controversial while many do not….”

Or, perhaps:
“If cities determine to grant no business licenses to companies because of their founder’s or their CEO’s political and social views, which some disagree with, yet many support…”

Let’s stop pretending that these ‘views’ are controversial to everyone; they’re only controversial to some people.

The controversy for me is the totalitarian wannabes using the coercive power of government to silence people who (piss, whine, moan, whimper) don’t agree with them on a particular subject.
Now tell me again which side of the political spectrum is home to the reasonable, rational, empirical, tolerant, compassionate and inclusive people?
Uh, huh, sure they are.

“The government can regulate discrimination in employment or against customers, but what the government cannot do is to punish someone for their words,” said Adam Schwartz, senior attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. “When an alderman refuses to allow a business to open because its owner has expressed a viewpoint the government disagrees with, the government is practicing viewpoint discrimination.”
“What the government cannot do is to punish someone for their words.”
– Adam Schwartz, American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois
The ACLU “strongly supports” same-sex marriage, Schwartz said, but noted that if a government can exclude a business for being against same-sex marriage, it can also exclude a business for being in support of same-sex marriage.
“But we also support the First Amendment,” he said. “We don’ think the government should exclude Chick-fil-A because of the anti-LGBT message. We believe this is clear cut.”

And I should point out that the Corpulent Master of Malaprops, aka ‘Mumbles’ Menino, has this very day been backpedalling so furiously from the position he took yesterday that he’s already dropped 20 pounds (and made it halfway to Providence, RI on his steel reinforced bicycle).
Imagine that; doing a virtual 180 when his pronouncements were met with torrents of derision.
And all this time I thought these people were principled. 😉

Cin,
This method of giving liberals a taste of their own ‘medicine’, MIGHT work on liberals. Unfortunately, NDT is so steeped in his ‘tit-for-tat’ idolatry he can no longer see the difference between a conservative and a liberal unless the distinction is as blunt as a spoon.
In NDTs world I am a liberal if I don’t ‘join in’ with the verbal stoning of Dan Savage, Barrak Obama, or any other liberal that wonders onto GP he deems worthy of target practice.
I can only imagine NDT as a child crying ,’unfair!’ when his father diciplined him but not the boy next door.
By all accounts the Son of God wouldn’t meet with NDTs approval because He rebuked the religious leaders of His day and socialized with tax collectors and prostitutes. One whos discernment is well developed can understand that Christ was speaking to each community in the ‘language’ they would understand. Such nuances are lost on NDT. To NDT it’s a ‘double standard’. And like Jonahs reaction to the grace God showed Nineveh, NDT cries ‘unfair!’

It’s example #3,274,968 (but who’s counting?) on why the truly reasonable, rational, empirical, tolerant, compassionate and inclusive people (hint: conservatives and libertarians) do not want any government to be any larger nor more powerful than is absolutely necessary (ie. roads, bridges, courts, and military).
Is this getting through to any of you not currently inclined in that direction?
Is it causing you to examine your faith (and YES, liberalism/leftism, and it’s more malignant incarnations (fascism/Marxism) ARE secular religions)?
I’d not be a bit surprised if the answer is ‘no’.

I understand why. Both you and Cinesnatch are desperate to be liked, and neither of you has enough courage to speak out and stand up for objective principles, right and wrong, and so forth. Better to make excuses for Dan Savage and agree with him when he calls your parents morons and brainwashers for having religious faith.

Mr. Cathy is entitled to his opinion. He is protected by the First Amendment. If Chick a Fil, KFC, Popeye´s, Koo-Koo-Roo-Koo, Pollo Campero were depended on me for my patronage, they would have been bankrupt by now. I just don´t like Chicken, period.

I would oppose any government efforts to ban Chik-Fil-A just because the owner is an out and proud bigoted ignoramus.

They have been in my area for years, but soon after they arrived I found out they were owned by a Bible thumping religious nut-job, so I never ate there. . . . Well, I did eat there once about two months ago just to check it out after a previous anti-gay episode, and it pains me to admit that my sandwich was pretty good. One thing I noticed, though, was that all the employees interacting with customers were very attractive young whites, while all the employees I could see in the back were black.

I don’t go to Chick-Fil-A, Cracker Barrel, or Domino’s Pizza. All are owned by religious fundies, but they have a right to put up restaurants and serve any individual. I won’t give them any of my money for two reasons: first, I cannot stand what they represent, and second, their food stinks. Fried food and cardboard pizza usually give me the runs.

They have been in my area for years, but soon after they arrived I found out they were owned by a Bible thumping religious nut-job, so I never ate there. . . .

and

I don’t go to Chick-Fil-A, Cracker Barrel, or Domino’s Pizza. All are owned by religious fundies, but they have a right to put up restaurants and serve any individual.

So there we have it. Two boycotters who won’t deal with bigots. One boycotter describes the bigot owner as a “Bible thumping religious nut-job and the other boycotter generalizes his opposition to bigot owners who are “religious fundies.”

From where I sit, two bigots are boycotting some other bigots who do not share their brand of bigotry.

The politically correct bigots have definitely got the upper hand. Right? Why do they even let Bible thumping religious nut-jobs come into town in the first place? Even though the other boycotter declares that the restaurant owner bigots have a right to put up restaurants and serve any individual, he still discriminates across the board because of his bigotry toward religious fundies.

In NDTs world I am a liberal if I don’t ‘join in’ with the verbal stoning of Dan Savage

That prompts me to look at the older Dan Savage thread (which NDT linked) and see what the fuss is about. It’s closed to comments now. This is how I would have responded (quotations from Sandhorse in that thread).
—————————————

17. When a rat eats your cheese, it should come as no surprise. Neither should it astonish when a known thief steals your coat.

Maybe it shouldn’t “astonish” you, Sandhorse. But neither should you promote a response of silence. Rats and thieves, they remain. That Savage is contemptible, is no reason to avoid calling out him out for it, or placing moral responsibility on him. Your words criticize those who do so as “pissing”, “moaning”, indulging in a “waste of time”. As NDT suggests, you advocate a double standard that effectively penalizes the good guys (Savage’s betters) for being good.

30. …A pedophile may not be intending to harm his victim…

Nonsense. Every pedophile who is not mentally retarded knows on some level that he is damaging his victim, involving the kid in something the kid shouldn’t be involved in (and shouldn’t have to be involved in). I know that some pedophiles will proclaim the contrary. That just means they’ve become extra big liars.
————————————-

In conclusion, and as I have said on this blog many times: I don’t support all of NDT’s comments. Lumping people in with the very worst of the left wing mainly causes confusion, in my observations. But man, when you peel back the layers and get to his core point… somehow it is always solid. Always something there, that is at least worth considering.

I also do not agree with the Boy Scout prohibition on homosexuals, but as a private organization, that is their right. Augusta National Golf Club excludes, which is silly in this day and age, but as a private club, if they want to do that, it’s their right.

You call be a bigot, and once again that is your right due to the First Amendment. However, I think you are a royal f***king A**hole. So there, go smoke that you moron.

In-N-Out Burger is impressive in not only how they run their company, their presentation, quality of food (especially for the price), but the employees seem happier than their counterparts and the restaurant has a pretty shrewd and respectable growth model. Not sure what the original owner’s stand on gay marriage is, as it’s not really important. However, he’s Christian. And the principles of the original owner is reflected in the way his business is run. In-N-Out as an example of corporate-gone-right. Sometimes, it just doesn’t make sense to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Aside from the run-of-the-mill liberal fascism of it all, the thing which strikes me is that its all a set up. The left needs to massively energize the base to have even a chance of Obama winning…its not like Chick fil A has made a massive secret about this sort of thing. Everyone should pretty much know their Protestants by now – anyone who states “Bible believing” should understand “exceptionally conservative on social issues” (for Catholics it is a bit more tricky…ask the Catholic business owner if he likes Chesterton; that will be a dead give away on rigid orthodoxy…though I suspect that Chesterton, were he asked, would come out in favor of gay marriage just as soon as gay marriage advocates come out in opposition to divorce). Given that anyone with any knowledge at all is familiar with the basic facts, the only possible explanation for it suddenly coming up is that someone in the Obama campaign apparatus felt it would be helpful…and as its also an attack on business, its a two-fer.

ILC, did you read my whole comment? I stated at the start of that comment that it disagreed with his behavior. And that if he were here I may say as much.

And let’s assume for a moment he was here. Do you truly believe there is anything I could say that would change his heart? As I stated he has no moral foundation so he cannot be held to any standard. So it would be a waste of my time.

But he isn’t here. So what? Should I wag my finger in the air and say ‘Dan Savage is a miserable excuse for a human.’? Aside from stating the obvious what would it accomplish? It would be pure symbolism over substance and the only thing I could be certain of it accomplishing is currying favor with the local GP crowd. Is there some unspoken rule that I must do that to ‘fit in’ here. So I chose to take a different tact with liberals. That is treating them with respect regardless of the way they may treat me. If only some of us are allowed to play the fiddle and the rest of us have to dance to the that tune to be ‘one of the club’, how does that make us any different from the liberal camp?

When people like the likes of Little Kiwi shoot their mouth off I can appreciate the responses he gets from GP regulars. He’s something of a lost cause. While I may not agree with how people respond to him, it’s clear no response with get through to him.

On the other hand, how many times have some genuinely open minded liberals been completely turned off by being verbally defecated on by some posters diarrhea of the mouth? How many opportunities have been squandered to dialog with left of centerist who may just be misinformed?

I’ve always believed that we can’t change other peoples behavior, we can only change our behavior. So that change starts with us. Treating liberals like they treat us may make a point but it’s long term benefits are negligible. Has NDTs insulting behavior ever elicited a positive response from a liberal? Now, of course, not all liberals can be engaged in civilized dialog.But when a fellow conservative gets rabidly branded ‘Obama loving liberal’ the moment they admonish a fellow conservative for innappropriate behavior, then we’ve lost all hope.

One of the very worst aspects of contemporary political culture is the willingness to excuse horrible behavior so long as it comes from someone “on our side.” And to excuse this as “rational” is the sign of complete moral and ethical vacancy.

That was a comment from V. . .

I think it perfectly applies to NDT.

NDT is like a pit bull pup with a new stuff toy. It is kind of funny when the pup first starts shaking the toy, but it soon looses its humor when the toy is completely shredded.

I for one value my time at GP for it makes me think and there are some great mentors. And I have noted them in the past.

What is interesting that even though I have come to accept NDT attention with humor, it is also concerning that I am not the only one who raises objections to NDT’s broad stroke – shotgun approach. I have seen at least center and right of center folk attacked and have even called NDT to the matt.

Yes I be left of center, and I am he to learn. And share. It’s been 4 years now, and I really enjoy the posts, the comments and the cat fights. I appreciate those who have put me in my place and have taken me to new places of understanding.

It is a shame that bullies persist, even with calls of civility.

Twitching a nose now and then is fun, and for the most part, this a community of gay folk with sarcasm as their brush, painting their world view..

Hands on hips girls. And to Dan. Aka miss rita beads, if we revere to meet, I would not hesitate to extend my hand, but even better, have open arms for a hug. It will be up up to you to accept.

If V the K had said, “Apparently, the phrase “Bible thumping religious nut-job” is a perfectly acceptable appellation among liberals to describe SOME Christians,” then I would say, “yes, for me, it is.”

I stated at the start of that comment that it disagreed with [Savage’s] behavior. And that if he were here I may say as much.

Yes; and in my own comment above, I gave a nod to your having taken the position that Savage is contemptible. Did you read my whole comment?

My point is that it doesn’t matter. Sure, you started out by acknowledging that Savage is contemptible. And yet your comment still -functioned- as an excuse for him. That’s what is so weird about it. It criticized those who would take Savage to task (Dan B) as “pissing”, “moaning”, indulging in a “waste of time”. And it announced that you have a double standard (you hold Savage’s betters to a different standard). Again, while I DO NOT agree with every last conclusion that NDT drew from it, I would have to agree at least that you have not adopted a position of much integrity.

Do you truly believe there is anything I could say that would change [Savage’s] heart?

Changing Savage is not the point. Savage may or may not read what is written about him and may or may not change; changing Savage is Savage’s problem. Just telling the truth in the face of human evil, is the point. JUST that much. OR, because I would agree with you, Sandhorse, that *NOT* everybody needs to do so on every occasion: you could at least stay out of the way of he who did step up to tell the truth (Dan B).

As I stated he has no moral foundation so he cannot be held to any standard.

There it is again; that double standard.

I would agree with you, if you were speaking of something or something with no moral *capacity*. For example: a rock, or a dog, or a vegetable (whether a literal vegetable, or a human being who has lost all brain function). But Savage isn’t those things.

Saying “You can’t expect morality from something with no moral capacity” is rational. Savage is not in that category. Savage is a mentally normal person. You are saying something different, effectively that we shouldn’t hold people to account who have chosen to reject (or not exercise) their own moral capacity. Yes we can and should: precisely because rejecting (or not exercising) one’s moral capacity is the essence of evil, the place where evil begins and becomes evil.

Should I wag my finger in the air and say ‘Dan Savage is a miserable excuse for a human.’?

Nope. As I have said, not everyone needs to jump into every little thing. Just stay out of the way of the person who did the right thing (Dan B, writing a post about Savage). And don’t proclaim double standards. Don’t shout out in favor of double standards.

Is there some unspoken rule that I must do that to ‘fit in’ here.

Perhaps the unwritten rule is the one from _Idiocracy_: “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

…I chose to take a different tact with liberals. That is treating them with respect regardless of the way they may treat me.

And you think that stating moral truths (whether for their benefit, or not) is… disrespectful? I don’t. I respect liberals enough to treat them like moral adults, expecting them to exercise their rational and moral capacities – EVEN IF I am 99% sure they are still not going to.

how many times have some genuinely open minded liberals been completely turned off by being verbally defecated on by some posters diarrhea of the mouth?

If YOU see that going on, and YOU are bothered by it, then YOU can jump in. I do, when I see something bad going on. And you will have the time, because of the time that you saved when you refrained BOTH from criticizing Savage, and criticizing Dan B for criticizing Savage.

Seriously – If not wasting time is your thing – then, given a choice between writing a comment to criticize Dan B for criticizing Savage, and writing a comment to defend a liberal on GP who you think is being stomped on unfairly, which would have been a little bit better use of your time? Which would have been just a little bit more helpful?

Out of time. Read the rest of #54, but have to stop the line-by-line here.

I was referring to the irony of the pot calling the kettle black. Mr. Cathy is not, to my knowledge, a bigot. To be one, he would have to do something overt such as installing gaydar on the doors of the store which would sound an alarm and lock the doors if a gay tried to enter. To my knowledge, he has never denied service on account of homosexuality or done anything whatsoever to be sure that gays are made to feel bad in his stores.

On the other hand, davinci and Richard R proudly proclaim that when they ferret our the “fact” that an owner is a “religious fundie” or a “Bible thumping religious nut-job” they immediately go into boycott mode, even though no overt assault on them has occurred. They proudly proclaim their bigotry toward people they don’t know or have experience with and justify it on the basis of the “bigotry” shown to them as evidenced by entirely tangental coincidence.

I wonder if Mr. Cathy would refuse to donate blood if it were to be used for saving the life of someone who happened to be gay. And then I wonder if Richard R and davinci would prefer not to receive a blood transfusion if it originated from a “Bible thumping religious nut-job” or a “religious fundie.”

Provincialism of the type that drives someone to lead with a personal litmus test before he will interact with another person is borderline bigotry. When the person states the litmus test succinctly by application of the generalization of “Bible thumping religious nut-job” or “religious fundie” the “borderline” part has been completely crossed over and it becomes full-blown bigotry.

I see, Richard R has a strict rule of civility wherein he only unleashes derogatory name-calling on people who hold different opinions than he and therefore deserve it.

We are not just dealing with “different opinions.” We are dealing with people who are waging a well-funded relentless campaign to diminish the lives of gay people, and that includes me. Nowadays they cultivate the public perception that it’s all about the definition of marriage. They are lying. If the public were receptive to it, they would still be campaigning for gays to be criminalized as they did with a flood of amicus briefs to SCOTUS during the run-up to the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision which repealed all sodomy laws.

So, I think I’m being quite mild, albeit accurate, when referring to these people as Bible thumping religious nut-jobs. But it would be legitimate to debate whether the use of such terms is productive in reaching the goal of changing minds.

How is “They (opponents of gay marriage) cultivate the public perception that it’s all about the definition of marriage. They are lying. If the public were receptive to it, they would still be campaigning for gays to be criminalized” Different from “Nowadays they (the supporters of gay marriage”) cultivate the public perception that it’s all about the definition of marriage. They are lying. If the public were receptive to it, they would still be campaigning for the age of consent to be abolished and legalized bestiality?” Does saying someone has an agenda different from their stated agenda give you a license to call them childish names?

By Richard R’s “reasoning, “referring to a person one disagrees with as a “pillow-biting liberal queer” is perfectly fine if the person in question supports organizations one can accuse of having a secret radical agenda.

We are not just dealing with “different opinions.” We are dealing with people who are waging a well-funded relentless campaign to diminish the lives of gay people, and that includes me. Nowadays they cultivate the public perception that it’s all about the definition of marriage. They are lying.

We are not just dealing with “different opinions.” We are dealing with people militantly ignorant p**icks who are waging a well-funded (and) relentless campaign to diminish the lives of gay people everyone who isn’t a Leftist/Fascist, and that includes me. Nowadays they cultivate the public perception that it’s all about the definition of marriage ‘equality’. They are lying LYING.

Does anyone know if this was intended as a corporate-run store as opposed to a franchise? It seems to me that if it was a franchise, then some little-guy entrepreneur was being potentially being stopped from opening a small business in an area through no actual fault of his own.

In that the democrats are supposedly all about helping the little guy, this stance seems at least a bit hypocritical. Further, if the franchisee’s views are unknown, then a person who might be sympathetic to the point of view of those who would stop him is getting screwed even more.

You are obviously an apologist for bigoted bullies where people who dare to defend themselves against bigoted bullies are viewed as the ones committing wrongdoing.

Regarding Muslims: If they are US citizens or otherwise here legally, I thought they had as much right to a mosque as Christians do to a church. But I also think that the US should be discouraging immigration by Muslims. My view is that while Christianity is bad enough, Islam is much much much worse – and on both sides my view applies mainly to the virulently vicious, albeit large, subsets.

But he isn’t here. So what? Should I wag my finger in the air and say ‘Dan Savage is a miserable excuse for a human.’? Aside from stating the obvious what would it accomplish?

Funny, you seemingly have no problem ranting about how other people who aren’t here and are boycotting Oreos are miserable excuses for humans, and you seem to think that accomplishes something.

So clearly again, it’s not absence, and it certainly isn’t always a waste of effort, since you seem willing to do it.

So I chose to take a different tact with liberals. That is treating them with respect regardless of the way they may treat me.

Funny, you seem to treat conservatives and people with religious beliefs with what you would term “disrespect” if it were applied to liberals, and insist that this is somehow productive.

So clearly it’s not that you treat EVERYONE with respect; it’s that you only treat people with respect if they are of the “correct” ideology.

And this one was the real howler.

I’ve always believed that we can’t change other peoples behavior, we can only change our behavior. So that change starts with us.

Funny, you seem to have no trouble hectoring conservatives like Dan Blatt and people with religious beliefs to change their behavior, criticizing their actions, and insisting that they should shut up.

So clearly you don’t believe in the change being limited to yourself if it’s someone who is not of your “correct” liberal ideology.

What you betray, Sandhorse, is very simple. You speaking out against Dan Savage carries zero advantage for you, because it would turn off your fellow liberal friends and socially ostracize you AND have the end result of Dan Savage calling you a meth addict and Jewish Nazi.

But if you attack conservatives and people with religious beliefs, you can exploit the tenets of their religious beliefs to be humble, self-reflective, and generous toward others, and get them to shut up — which pleases your liberal friends.

So that’s pretty much your motivation. You’re not really acting out of principle here; you’re being a Meghan McCain/MSNBC -type “Republican”, in which you are forever bashing Christians, conservatives, and other Republicans as “extremist” and “H8ers” to curry favor with your Obama Party friends.

And my response to that is simple: if you won’t lecture Dan Savage and your fellow Obama supporters on “civility”, your attempt to do so to me is nothing more than blatant hypocrisy and an attempt to exploit my own superior moral code to shut me up.

Like ILC mentioned, there is a time for the “blackstaff” — the person who has to crawl down into the muck and take the hit in order to stop the rules from being abused. That concept recognizes that there are people like you, Dan Savage, Cinesnatch, rusty, Levi, Richard Rush, and your fellow Obama bigots who spit on moral codes, call those who follow them weak, and whose only motivating emotion is pure selfishness. Like Hamas, you set up missile sites in hospitals and then present decent people with the choice of letting themselves be killed or being smeared with the “h8er” brush.

I will take that “H8er” hit. You are a blind bigot. That fact is made clear by your insane attempts to spin to protect the delicate feelings of your liberal friends like Dan Savage who are calling conservative gays Nazis and telling them to kill themselves, Levi who is screaming that conservatives are all cowards and murderers who are responsible for the Aurora shootings, and Richard Rush who is claiming that people with religious beliefs are “Bible thumping religious nut-job” — while you openly attack and bash people for boycotting Oreos.

You are scum. Pure, unadulterated, bigoted, pathetic scum. For you to attack Dan Blatt while screaming that the liberals who post things like this should not be criticized because it is “disrespectful” is depraved. Period.

Progressive Leftist: “Chick-Fil-A is owned by a Christian Bigot who opposes gay marriage and therefore hates gays! We’re going to destroy his business by boycotts. angry protests, and vandalism if necessary to show that intolerance like that is not welcome in our community.”

Some Conservative: “What about that anti-Islamic imam who preaches that gays should be stoned to death who plans on opening a mosque in the community?”

You are obviously an apologist for bigoted bullies where people who dare to defend themselves against bigoted bullies are viewed as the ones committing wrongdoing.

Comment by Richard R — July 27, 2012 @ 12:48 pm – July 27, 2012

Yup, Richard Rush — because you and your fellow bigot gays are breaking the law with your screaming attempts to prevent Chik-fil-A from opening restaurants.

You don’t understand that because you are a depraved, pathetic toad. You are screaming and making excuses for why bigot gays like yourself and your bigot Obama Party are ACTIVELY using the law to harass and punish business owners for holding religious and political views to which you are opposed.

If you were acting out of principle, Richard Rush, you would condemn the Nation of Islam. You would state that Rahm Emanuel and his ilk are bigots and hypocrites for supporting gay marriage opponents. You would hold kiss-ins at the Nation of Islam’s restaurants.

But you’re not. Which demonstrates quite convincingly that you’re a hypocritical bigot.

Oooh, the comments have mounted, haven’t they? Try to keep it brief and to the point.

If Chik-fil-a opens in Boston and Chicago and they have to go out of business because there just isn’t enough of a market for their product (apologizes for my language in uttering the “M” word), then the views of those cities mayors and the liberal groups will be vindicated.

Instead, they are unwilling to take that risk and are more willing to impose their own views as superior to the other side AND to their citizens right to choose which businesses to patronize.

1. If you hate Christians, and promote negative stereotypes about Christians, you’re a bigot.
2. If you get together with a bunch of other anti-Christian bigots and gang up on Christians to exert power over them using threats and force, you’re a bully.

Nowadays they cultivate the public perception that it’s all about the definition of marriage. They are lying.

Wait for it. The logic will astound you….

If the public were receptive to it, they would still be campaigning for gays to be criminalized….

Somehow, Richard R reaches the “obvious” conclusion that a “well funded” (anti-gay) group is framing their (anti-gay) activities as a fight concerning the redefinition of marriage. Then he concludes that if the public were receptive to the drive by the anti-gay group, the public would come out and campaign to “criminalize” gays…..

Since the public is not clamoring to criminalize gays, it follows that ……

Get it? I don’t either. But the well funded anti-gay group is lying. Right? And, according to Poor Richard R’s Aw-me-attack, he is personally suffering from it.

That victim status permits, yea, requires him to “demonize” the well funded anti-gay group that is lying. And the definition of marriage “non-debate” is a vengeful canard and side show meant to confuse and distract and provide cover and motive for terrible things yet to befall the gays.

Actually, Richard Rush and his fellow bigots kept NAMBLA around for decades in their ILGA organization, passing resolution after resolution in support of it.

So we can state that the only reason Richard Rush isn’t advocating for child rape and pedophilia is that the public won’t support it — and that if it wouldn’t cost them publicly, Richard Rush and his fellow gay bigots would still be pushing and marching with NAMBLA like their hero Harry Hay.

Livewire, the letter from NAMBLA to the ILGA does an excellent job of outlining how ILGA and NAMBLA worked hand in hand for decades. It even outlines the numerous resolutions that the ILGA passed with NAMBLA’s full support. Another version is here.

As to Sandhorse, I think you’ve seen enough of the genre to know that slugs only stop the living; zombies require buckshot. 🙂

Just wanna say FTR that, in my long years as a left-liberal, I held Sandhorse’s philosophy. “Don’t judge, it’s mean and won’t do any good. How can you blame people who have different standards than yours, or (as the case may be) no standards?”

I found that it wasn’t a good philosophy because, aside from the fact that it “didn’t work” well in life, and too often did excuse the inexcusable, it did violence to my own mind and soul (my own human capacities for reason and morality). You could say that I found holding such a philosophy to be a form of… self-hate.

There is some confusion … deliberate, IMHO… on what the Biblical admonition against judging others means. It does not “anything you do is OK.” If it meant that, we’d have to say, “Jimmy Holmes may have murdered 12 people, but, gee y’know, I’m sure *he* thought he was doing the right thing.” We have to be able to judge behavior, or else we can’t tell right from wrong.

When Christ tells us not to judge others, he means we can’t tell other people “You are not worthy of Christ’s redemption or atonement.” That forgiveness is available to everyone… even Levi and Richard R.

Yes. It is true, either that no one is beyond redemption / atonement / forgiveness by God… or that, if they are beyond it, it’s still not for me to make that pronouncement. (Me not being God.) And yet I am called (by Life, or God if you prefer) to continually distinguish truth from lie, right from wrong, earned from unearned, humane from inhumane, etc. Because there is an objective reality, an objective truth. Some claims are true, some not; some actions are right, some not. Denying it won’t help anyone.

Do you think Sandhorse is going to call that out? Do you think he’s going to oppose that? Oh no. That would be mean and “disrespectful”. In fact, we should be beating ourselves up for being so mean as to point out that Kathy Griffin is endorsed and supported by the Obama Party, the gay and lesbian community, and organizations like HRC and GLAAD, because Sandhorse’s liberal friends might be offended.

This is where I have to point this out to Livewire. These people are out to destroy a 17-year-old because they hate her mother. They scream and piss and cry if Malia and Sasha Obama are even mentioned or photographed, but they endorse, pay for, and encourage this type of behavior towards Sarah Palin and her children.

One can respect others if they reciprocate. But show me where these people reciprocate. Show me that they have the least bit of decency. Show me that they will follow the guidelines of civility and respectful behavior.

You can’t. They don’t. And what is Sandhorse’s response? To excuse them and attack those who point this out.

Why? Because Sandhorse’s friends LIKE Kathy Griffin and her bashing the Palins, and won’t like Sandhorse if he doesn’t support her and her Palin-bashing.

Like I said, Sandhorse is a Meghan McCain. And those people are to be mocked and pointed out as hatemongering hypocrites as much as is humanly possible, because that is the only thing they understand. You cannot appeal to their principles because they have none.

At this point, the Palin family is the only career lifeline Kathy Griffin has. If she didn’t make news occasionally by saying something nasty about Sarah Palin or one of her daughters, she’d be as forgotten as Linda Evans.

In short, Richard Rush can lie and blabber all he wants about how mean conservatives are, but I have just provided multiple examples of how he himself practices what he claims to condemn.

And in the process, nuked any chance of anyone here seeing him as anything more than a bigoted liar.

Now of course, you don’t understand that, because to you it is more important to support and endorse and be “respectful” to the bigoted liar in the name of “dialogue”.

Or, more precisely, because your liberal friends support and endorse bashing the Palins, bashing Trig Palin in particular, and bashing gay conservatives like Dan, and you certainly wouldn’t want them to think less of you.

I’ve seen a long line of people come to GP who think “Gay… patriots! Neat! Dan Blatt tries to be fair and precise in what he says, sometimes a little too much… Neat! Then he should think like I think! Because I know his views are wrong, but I’ll be able to change him, because he seems reasonable enough to listen to *me*! And his defenders are wrong too, they should all think like I think! But I’ll be able to change them too, or at least shame and amaze them!”

And then when they neither change Dan nor amaze anyone else, and still more when people point out the faultiness of their views and arguments, they CHOOSE to focus on the “worst” (most challenging) defender present and whine about his incivility. Some declare their intention of never answering that defender again – and break it within hours, perhaps even within the same thread. Others huffily declare their intention of leaving. Most leave eventually. But all never having recognized that their views and arguments are not very strong, and still more, that their own incivil desire and expectation of changing Dan and others lay near the root of whatever problems they ran into.

Not every liberal commentor here has been like that. (Thanks again Pat, rusty, others I’ve forgotten.) These commentors have been a few on the Right, a few more “moderates”, and a majority on the Left.

I don’t comment to change anybody. I read a lot, hoping to learn something. I comment to share what I know, and if something bothers me, to call it like I see it. People can listen to me or not; people can change or not; I don’t care.

Well then it looks like we both enjoy inflicting our own brand of pain.

You prefer taking out the eyes, I prefer the ‘hot coals’ method.

Romans 12:16-22
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Because, Sandhorse, the “hot coals” method that you espouse requires that the person involved have a sense of right and wrong, and that they have done you wrong in the first place.

But what is it that you have said about those against whom you practice this?

As I stated he has no moral foundation so he cannot be held to any standard.

So your “hot coals” method is actually feebly waving an old briquette.

What ILC is pointing out is that you are in fact making every excuse in the book to avoid confronting people who even you acknowledge are engaging in outright evil. You have a myriad of excuses and rationalizations, but they all essentially circle back to your belief that you are not worthy to challenge the liberals and that your ideas are just as bad as liberals say they are.

Which is the very definition of “self-hating”.

Ironically:

Or perhaps it just makes me a ‘Bible-thumper’ like Mr. Rush suggests.

Comment by Sandhorse — July 27, 2012 @ 4:58 pm – July 27, 2012

Oh no. Richard Rush is all about pretending to like Christians like yourself who can quote Scripture to explain why he is justified in brutalizing and attacking them and who will never say a word to the contrary.

Just like MSNBC and the Obama Party are all about Meghan McCain Republicans who would never actually support anything that Republicans say or do.

I understand that your addressing ND30, Sandhorse, but I’d like to say that while I do not actually know anyone here, I’m pretty sure that ND30 would feed a starving person, or give a drink to anyone who was in danger of suffering dehydration (I think your ‘read’ of the passage you cited is too literal).
I have done these things.
But then this is not the issue being discussed.
The issue is calling bad/evil out for what it is.

“The beginning of wisdom is calling things by their right names.”
– author unknown, believed to originate in ancient China

(continued) The problem is that I no sign of you “overcoming evil with good”. What you did in the Dan Savage case (that I tried to dialogue with you about, but you preferred to break your word given at the end of #23… “Whatevs” 😉 ), was not it.

I don’t know directly, ILC, that’s true.
But I do know in this sense: I’ve spent an adult lifetime doing these things; not waiting for others (read: government) to do them, but on my own time, and on my own dime.

I think part of the equation, too, is that Conservatives know that liberals lie, that almost everything they say is a lie. They have a certain George Costanza ethic about lying: “It’s not a lie if you believe it’s true as you’re saying.”

Take gun control. Libs will only say publicly that they want just a few “common sense” restrictions. They say something different among themselves, but this is the public face. Conservatives know the ultimate goal is the de facto banning of private firearms, because that’s what “a few common sense restrictions” have led to in other countries. And we know it’s the ultimate goal because in cities where their power is unchallenged… NYC, DC, Chicago… it’s exactly the policy they’ve put in place.

And liberals act so offended when you catch them in their lies.

This is why liberals go nuts when conservatives suggest common sense legislation to, for example, require health inspections of abortion clinics. Libs panic. “OMG! This is the first step to banning abortion.” Because that is exactly how they would start if banning abortion were their goal.

The thing that I think is funny, V the K, is that the liberals like Sandhorse who follow the “hot coals” method never seem to recognize that their non-shaming shaming method doesn’t seem to work particularly effectively.

Indeed, if you think about it, all these people that Sandhorse eschews to shame, i.e. HRC, the Obama Party, Barack Obama, Dan Savage, Kathy Griffin, and the like, continue to get WORSE, their namecalling and shouts of racist accelerating, their statist ambitions exploding, their open statements that people should be punished by government for publicly expressing their beliefs — even as Sandhorse goes on and on about how much he’s continuing to apply the overwhelming pressure of nothing to them.

Which makes me wonder: does Sandhorse really think what he’s doing is working, or has he simply found sufficient rationalization to explain his doing nothing?

But right now I am not at a location I can address you’re statements fully.

And you’re absolutely correct, I did break my word. It was a moment of weakness on my part when NDT said exactly what I’ve been trying to say. Then he did a quick slight of hand and pulled Kathy Griffin (a self proclaimed ‘militant atheist’) into the conversation.

I’m not sure when I will be able to follow up, as this is the last weekend before I ‘tie the knot’ and I have tons to get done yet.

But if you keep an eye out, or perhaps in another thread, we can continue.

I won’t speak for you, but I do look forward to it.

Some food for thought before I close out. Among my liberal friends I’m referred to a misguided conservative. They wonder how I can support a candidate that is ‘out to get me’. When I come here I am an ‘Obama loving liberal’.

It reminds me when I came out and my more fundamentalist friends said I could never live a happy life till I got rid of the ‘gay’ thing. Among my gay friends they said I should ditch my faith to ‘live free’.

Some food for thought before I close out. Among my liberal friends I’m referred to a misguided conservative. They wonder how I can support a candidate that is ‘out to get me’.

Comment by Sandhorse — July 27, 2012 @ 5:42 pm – July 27, 2012

Why you would choose to have people as friends who refer to you personally, regularly and directly as misguided and stupid, I have no idea.

And given that your “hot coals” method seemingly has done nothing to stop them from doing it, one has to wonder just how effective it is — or if your belief is that you have to suffer abuse in order to be really gay and accepted.

jman1961 you said NDT would ‘feed a starving person, or give a drink to anyone who was in danger of suffering dehydration’. (I never said he wouldn’t)

Then you said I my ‘read’ of the passage [I] cited is too literal’.

I’m not sure if that is what you meant. But if I took that passage literally, I don’t think I could fit the ‘hot coals’ in my back pocket. Though I suppose that would bring new meaning to ‘packing heat’. 😉

“Why you would choose to have people as friends who refer to you personally, regularly and directly as misguided and stupid, I have no idea.”

Because NDT, they are my friends. They may think I am misguided (they never said I was stupid) but they don’t treat me badly either. I don’t have to be of one mind with them to enjoy their company, and as a matter of fact, some of the conversations we have had, have influenced them. Something I could not accomplish if I was perpetually calling them ‘Obama loving liberals’.

I hope you don’t take this as an insult NDT, but I think you and I may have more in common then meets the eye. I never questioned your passion or your motives. Or at least I didn’t intend to, and if I have, then I sincerely apologize now. It’s clear we disagree on methodologies, but I guess it’s also clear the others here can disagree with your methods and still count you among their friends. I should hope that those who disagree with my methods would offer me the same latitude.

NDT, I would prefer to work with you rather then against you. And I genuinely mean that.

In any case I really must go, I’m gonna be knee deep in it if I don’t.

Whoa..all this over “to eat or not to eat” a chicken sandwich.
I am a vegetarian and don’t eat there for that reason. My desire to have a healthy heart and low body weight has made it anathema to me eat fried food anywhere (and I grew up in the South.) This is a franchise operation, so not all owners may agree with the CEO. I guess they are required to close on Sundays, but don’t think they have to sign a document that they oppose gay marriage. Much ado about nothing really. Sorry about the Shakespeare references.